CHAPTER XVIII
The sheer human waste involved in the execution of Lieutenant Rosales horrified Thomas Strawbridge, and filled him with a fundamental discouragement toward all Venezuela. What fire and courage had been wantonly squandered! Could nothing have been done to reclaim so brilliant a daredevil?
However, Strawbridge was the only one who brooded over Rosales's untimely death. The captors of San Geronimo were very jovial and very busy. Saturnino began a series of confiscations which worked with machine-like efficiency. No doubt in his plans for the attack on San Geronimo the colonel had worked out the details of this confiscation. From some source he had obtained a list of the wealthy citizens in the captured town, and now he began collecting what he called "voluntary contributions to the insurgent cause." The colonel fostered the "will to give," by explaining to the prospective contributor what would occur in the event that the sum marked against his name was not forthcoming.
He was forced to carry this threat into effect in only two instances. One cocoa-broker he chained bareheaded in the plaza, and kept him there all day with a pitcher of water just out of his reach. Strawbridge got a glimpse of this wretch, but hurried away for fear he should get himself into trouble by pushing the water closer. The other man, Strawbridge simply heard about. He was shot. The plaza incident was designed purely as a publicity measure, a means of teaching cheerful and abundant donations to a worthy cause. Its value could hardly be questioned.
But the colonel's methods of suasion were not always physical. When he occupied the big wireless telegraph which the federal authorities had constructed at San Geronimo, he persuaded the federal officer to stay at his post.
The wireless plant was a little east of the city, on one of the long, gentle knolls in the llanos. It was a quiet place, barring the whine of the radio, and it was free from the scents left by the battle around the casa fuerte. Strawbridge often walked out there. It was operated by a dark, silent little man, an Austrian. All the wireless operators in Venezuela were foreigners, because the system itself was new and as yet there were no natives trained for the positions. The Federal Government had given this Austrian the rank of lieutenant, and he had been a regular officer in the Venezuelan Army.
There was a humanity about Strawbridge which eventually drew the operator out. One night the two were sitting outside the station, looking up at the stars and cooling off after the day's heat. As they conversed, presently the ex-lieutenant began a half-hearted defense of his desertion. He said he would not hear to it at first, that he insisted that Coronel Saturnino imprison him or stand him up before a firing-squad, but the colonel scouted such an idea. He said that really the colonel was the kindest-hearted man. He had shown the lieutenant where he was wrong.
"You are a wireless operator," said the colonel. "You should consider yourself strictly a part of your machinery, equally efficient for either side that owns the plant. It would do me no good to execute you and replace you with another man. If the Federals ever recapture this town, they will certainly feel the same way about it. You are as much a part of your plant as the aërials overhead."
The little Austrian sat staring up at the aërials swung high against the stars.
"I am just as much a part of this plant as those aërials," he repeated gloomily. "They receive messages from anywhere, and transmit them correctly—to any one."
It rather disgusted the drummer.
"Even the aërials have a static," he said, "which sometimes interferes with their transmission. I suppose you have no static."
The dark little man seemed disturbed by this, but merely repeated his formula. Heaven knows with what more casuistry Coronel Saturnino had beguiled him. To Strawbridge there was something smudged and pitiful, rather than treacherous, about the little operator.
In all these functionings of warlike ethics, Strawbridge yielded a rather shocked acquiescence to the logic of the situation. In only one instance did he become personally involved, and that was when a revolutionary squad went aboard the Concepcion Inmaculada.
It was a typical Latin-American scene on the schooner's deck, with the sun boiling pitch out of her strakes and a squad of short, brown, empty-faced riflemen standing in the heat, listening as Saturnino, Strawbridge, and Captain Vargas threshed out the rights of the matter.
At Captain Vargas's request, Strawbridge explained to Saturnino that he, Captain Vargas, had remained at San Geronimo during the revolutionary attack, upon the drummer's assurance that he and his schooner would receive complete justice at the hands of the insurgents.
Saturnino assented to this, with the utmost graciousness.
The captain himself then added that he did not fly with the other cowardly schooner-owners because he confided then, as he confided now, in the integrity of the revolutionistas, the nobility of their cause, and the spotless characters of their leaders.
Saturnino bowed deeply over the tar-streaked deck, and assured Captain Vargas that his confidence honored his heart as his judgment honored his intellect.
The captain then asked for assistance in getting his tonka-beans and balata aboard the Concepcion Inmaculada, that he might sail and spread abroad tidings of the justice and equity of the revolutionistas—which no doubt would greatly aid their cause.
The colonel agreed to this, heartily, but suggested that, since all the barter on the wharf had become insurgent property by force of capture, the insurgents now stood in the shoes of the original owners of the property, and that he, Coronel Saturnino, should be paid for the freight.
At this Vargas became thoughtful, and said that he had already paid the owner for the goods. When the colonel asked him for a receipt, the skipper made some vague excuse about the receipt not having been delivered, but he assured the colonel that payment had been made.
Saturnino said he did not doubt this; he said if he were acting for himself he would deliver the freight at once and allow Captain Vargas to sail, but he was not acting for himself. No, every transaction he performed had to be accounted for with the strictest business formality, to President Fombombo, in order that every citizen might be treated with an exact and impartial justice. Therefore el capitan would excuse the technicality, but he would have to pay for his tonka-beans and rubber again, in order that he, Saturnino, might have a proper record of the deal. Then the captain could file a claim, if he wished, with the insurgent government, against the man who originally took the money, and thus he would infallibly get it back.
Captain Vargas's good-humored face immediately became serious, but eventually the three men went below into the skipper's cabin, and there Vargas opened a strong-box and turned over to Saturnino a considerable quantity of American gold pieces, and several ounces of raw gold which the skipper had traded for at the mouth of the Caroni River. When the soldiers had lugged the box of money up on deck, Captain Vargas's cheerfulness returned, and he requested that soldiers be furnished to lade the schooner with the beans and rubber on the wharf.
The colonel seemed surprised.
"On the wharf?"
"Seguramente, señor!" exclaimed the skipper, also surprised. "That was the cargo consigned to me."
"But, señor," demurred the colonel, "you cannot expect the revolutionary government of Rio Negro to be bound and crippled by the contracts of its enemies! We should soon land in a pretty impasse."
"But you sold me the balata on the wharf, yourself!"
"Cá! No. Your tonka-beans and balata will be delivered in their proper turn. Here, I will give you a receipt for the money. Now, this balata, we are going to ship to Rio...."
Coronel Saturnino was drawing forth a receipt-book, to write Captain Vargas a receipt, when the injured sailor forgot caution and broke into all manner of Spanish abuse. He declared the revolutionistas were thieves, cut-throats, and rascals, exactly what he had heard and believed all the time. He shouted that Saturnino might keep the rubber, tonka-beans, and gold, that he was going to sail away and never cruise up the accursed Orinoco again!
Strawbridge, too, was incensed at the barefaced robbery. He declared that such methods were bad business, that Saturnino would ruin all possible commerce in Rio Negro, that the country's reputation was worth more than a cargo of balata.
"It's just like one of our great American poets says, colonel," cried Strawbridge, earnestly. "You must recall the famous poem entitled, 'Has It Ever Struck You?' Everybody knows the lines. I'll bet they are pasted up in half the offices in America. Now listen to this. The poet says:
"All of us know that Money talks throughout our glorious nation,
But Money whispers low compared to business reputation.
For men will talk this wide world o'er; take this under advisement.
To have them talking for you is the wisest advertisement.
Pull off no slick nor crooked deal, for pennies or for dollars.
God! think of all the trade you'll lose if just one sucker hollers!"
For some reason these admirable verses seemed to irritate Coronel Saturnino more than all the abuse shouted by Captain Vargas. He turned sharply on Strawbridge.
"Señor," he snapped, "there is a difference between a stupid business conducted in the midst of profound peace and a band of men struggling for life in the midst of war. In peace one can look to the future, but in war we must seize on the present. That barter on the dock represents so much available capital for our insurgent government. Do you imagine I am going to divide it with a private individual when the salvation of our whole country hangs in the balance?"
Captain Vargas reiterated his intention of sailing away without more ado, down the river, but Coronel Saturnino then informed him that the insurgent government would be forced to conscript the Concepcion Inmaculada for the purpose of freighting barter to Rio.
Oaths, arguments, and prayers availed nothing with the colonel. The Concepcion Inmaculada would be employed by the provisional government until hostilities ceased.
As Strawbridge returned up the playa with the colonel, that officer's good humor returned. He began smiling again, a little ironically.
"Now, this matter of the Concepcion Inmaculada.... If our revolution wins, Señor Strawbridge, I shall be accounted in history as a great financier; if we lose, I shall be known as a thief and a murderer. In your own country, señor, have you ever discovered any difference between thieves and financiers, except that the one loses and the one succeeds?"
On the third day a part of the insurgent cavalry set out for Canalejos. San Geronimo was now "consolidated." It belonged inside the red line on the map in General Fombombo's study. Strawbridge decided he would go back with the squadron.
During these three days the drummer's wounded hand had been steadily growing worse. Coronel Saturnino tried to persuade the American to remain in San Geronimo until his wound healed, but Strawbridge declared he had important business with General Fombombo. He said he was afraid that the capture of so many federal rifles would ruin his trade with the general.
Saturnino assured him the acquisition of the rifles in the casa fuerte would not influence the general in the slightest degree. But Strawbridge was far from convinced. He had seen Saturnino's word tested often enough to doubt it. He knew the colonel's Latin penchant for a pleasant falsehood rather than an unpleasant truth.
But behind his anxiety about the rifles, Strawbridge was homesick for Canalejos. He really wanted to see the señora, to sit with her on the piazza in the evenings, and hear her play the piano. Thoughts of her came to him with an ineffable charm and sweetness.
So on the third day he set out with the troops, with a wounded hand and with the vision of a slender music-making figure in a nun's garb, moving before him like a mirage over a desert.
The drummer had not traversed twelve kilometers before his wound took a wicked turn. With the jolting of his horse the aching increased, and the arm swelled clear up to his shoulder. He grew feverish, then somehow, in the furnace of the llanos, he imagined that he was in the cavalry charge again. He suddenly began spurring his horse and waving an imaginary carbine at a roof full of Federals. Then the Federals seemed to capture him. He struggled terrifically, but the Federals pinioned him and were going to execute him, just as Rosales had been executed.
Thereafter Strawbridge's delirium was broken by intervals of clarity. Several times he became rational, to find himself bound fast to a litter which was swung between two mules. Then he would be about to be executed again.
For a long time, when the drummer emerged into an interval of clear thinking, he found himself in the furnace of sunshine on the llanos; an eternity or two later he regained consciousness shuddering with cold, and saw the sky above him filled with stars. The squadron had gone on ahead, leaving the sick man with Father Benicio, Gumersindo, and the pack-mules.
On the morning of the second day, Strawbridge thought he heard the priest say they would soon be at home. The next thing the drummer knew he lay in a great bed, with cold packs on his hand and arm and all over him. And he saw what to him was the most beautiful face in the world, looking down at him, weeping silently. The American had barely the strength to extend his good hand.
"Señora ..." he whispered.
The woman suddenly sobbed aloud.
"Oh, señor, they have told me what a hero you were!"
Then the señora suddenly flickered out again.